“Peter Pan” special edition not as full of extras

The Disney folks have done it again. By “again,” I mean they’ve dusted off another classic, cleaned it up, put together a lot of background material, and released it as a “Platinum Edition.”

Getting the treatment this time out is “Peter Pan.” Based on the J. M. Barrie play, it tells the story of the boy who refused to grow up. Wendy Darling steals Peter’s shadow in order to meet him, and convinces him to take her and her two younger brothers with him back to Neverland. There they meet up with the nefarious Captain Hook and his band of pirates. There are also mermaids, Injuns and the Lost Boys.

The extras are good, but not as much as was included in the “Little Mermaid” or “Lady and the Tramp” re-releases. The film has a commentary track by Roy Disney, Walt’s brother, along with an enhanced home theater mix.

On the second disc, there are three new songs: the first is “Pirates Song,” which was the song the pirates sang to Wendy and the Lost Boys to entice them to join Captain Hook’s crew. It was replaced by “A Pirate’s Life.” The second is a song that was written in 1940 for the film, but never recorded. Legend Disney composer Richard Sherman wrote the music and Paige O’Hara (the voice of Belle in “Beauty and the Beast”) recorded the music to “Never Land: The Lost Song.” The final is “The Second Star to the Right,” by Disney hip hop/pop group T-Squad. That last one will probably find heavy rotation on the Disney Channel between shows.

For kids, there’s a game segment: “Train to be a Lost Boy.” Narrated by Peter Pan, it invites the viewer to play “Smee’s Sudoku Challenge,” fight off pirates with “Tarrrget Practice,” and fly with Tinker Bell in “Tink’s Fantasy Flight Challenge.”

Adult collectors will be interested in the “Backstage Disney” section, which includes several featurettes. The studio produced “The Peter Pan Story” in 1952 to showcase the work that went into making the film. “You Can Fly: The Making of Peter Pan” is an updated version of essentially the same documentary.

“The Peter Pan That Almost Was” takes a look at story concepts that were reviewed and rejected for various reasons, including Peter’s plan to kidnap a “mother” for the Lost Boys. And finally, “In Walt’s Words: ‘Why I Made Peter Pan'” details Disney’s fascination with the Peter Pan story and his determination to make it a feature cartoon.

Most unnecessary extra: The film is presented for a second time on Disc 2, with a “Read Along” option. This could have been put on the first disc without too much trouble. Just delete the “Sneak Peek” previews, or move them to the second disc.

It’s interesting to note that Disney’s “Peter Pan” was the first version of either the stage play or the filmed versions to actually feature a boy in the title role. Disney child actor Bobby Driscoll, who had already appeared in “Song of the South” and “Treasure Island” was tapped to play Peter. Kathryn Beaumont went almost directly from recording the voice of Alice in “Alice in Wonderland” to Wendy Darling.

The animation medium gave the filmmakers the ability to do things not possible in the stage plays: Tinker Bell was a fully realized character instead of a flashlight beam; Nana was an actual dog instead of someone in a dog suit, and the mermaids could actually splash water.

The play and film are products of their eras. Today, the sequence “Why is the Red Man Red” would have been severely edited, or cut completely, due to politically incorrect restraints. And one of the interview subjects refers to Tinker Bell as the “first feminist cartoon character” based on her independent spirit. I don’t know that I would have gone that far in classifying her.

Considering how much went into the Platinum Editions of previous Disney releases, this one seems a bit skimpy. A lot of the details in the various featurettes are repeated. It just seems odd that since this was Disney’s favorite story after “Snow White” that there wasn’t more detail.

For animation buffs, it’s still worth getting, though, especially for the gorgeous restoration. It had been a long, long time since I had seen it, and I was pleased with it.